trying to understand the golden rule

hi there folks

i am a hobbiest photographer
and probably not a good one at that
but seeing as I work 60-80 hours per week
I do't see any time to really affect that right now
but
my niece is in design school (just started) and they have a manditory photography class which she tells me about (in medium detail)
and I have decided to try to do their assignments in parallel
just for the practice and for the knowledge
**
anyway, so now the assignment is to take a picture using six methods of composition: one of which being the :"golden rule"
i googled it and I have a partial understanding of it
but i guess i am confused about something
while fibinocci series actually occurs in vey few things in nature truly
the idea is just to use a scene where the center of attention is in the right lower third of the frame?
Does it matter if it is on the left?
or upper third instead of lower?

can there be other things in the picture that is not the center of attention?
i.e. if i have a costal town scene
where the put some tower or something else notable in the bottom third of the right side
and the left side is mostly made up of water and blue sky
what would happen if a sailboat would be in the left mid field? or a plane coming in...
am i making sense?

i know this isn't a hard fast thing - but Iam doing this for a faux assignment - so please think academically for me
thanks!

Well, follow the "rules of the assignment", then for your own creative "impulses", break the rules!

All that Fibonaccia stuff... You're over thinking it.

Basically, don't put things in the center. Off to the side is better. Don't have the horizon going across the center of the image. A bit above center or a bit below is better. If you have a face or anything that looks like a face or can serve as a face (like the front of a building), then have it off to one side, facing towards the center so that there is more space in front of the face than behind it.

That's pretty much what it comes down to.

When I studied photography - long ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and now I am the dinosaur - we learned that the best composition has two centers of interest,one primary and the other secondary. This causes the viewer's eye to move around the picture, creating a subconscious feeling of dynamism. So having the primary C of I at a certain locus does not mean that the rest of the frame has to be empty. But it seems likely that the instructor's purpose was not to create the "perfect" or even best photo, but rather to give the students "hands on" experience of trying several variations.

Tiberius wrote in post #16366988
All that Fibonaccia stuff... You're over thinking it.

Basically, don't put things in the center. Off to the side is better. Don't have the horizon going across the center of the image. A bit above center or a bit below is better. If you have a face or anything that looks like a face or can serve as a face (like the front of a building), then have it off to one side, facing towards the center so that there is more space in front of the face than behind it.

That's pretty much what it comes down to.

Seems like you should be telling that to the instructor of the course. "Teacher! Leave them kids alone!" Rules are bricks in the wall.

tonylong wrote in post #16366953
Well, follow the "rules of the assignment", then for your own creative "impulses", break the rules!

Indeed and I will take that seriously. Just trying to understand the purpose of the rule. Later on we will be breaking the rule!

Tiberius wrote in post #16366988
All that Fibonaccia stuff... You're over thinking it.

Basically, don't put things in the center. Off to the side is better. Don't have the horizon going across the center of the image. A bit above center or a bit below is better. If you have a face or anything that looks like a face or can serve as a face (like the front of a building), then have it off to one side, facing towards the center so that there is more space in front of the face than behind it.

That's pretty much what it comes down to.

Thanks for that clarification. It seemed that way. just that the examples quoted there is usually a lot of negative space...so I am trying to get the idea.

tzalman wrote in post #16366996
When I studied photography - long ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and now I am the dinosaur - we learned that the best composition has two centers of interest,one primary and the other secondary. This causes the viewer's eye to move around the picture, creating a subconscious feeling of dynamism. So having the primary C of I at a certain locus does not mean that the rest of the frame has to be empty. But it seems likely that the instructor's purpose was not to create the "perfect" or even best photo, but rather to give the students "hands on" experience of trying several variations.

I agree that since it was the first lesson - i expect that there is an amount of just the very basics for non-photographers (designers). Thanks for the more advanced version of composition. That makes a lot of sense. But since I am mirroring the class...I will take it step by step!

tzalman wrote in post #16367008
Seems like you should be telling that to the instructor of the course. "Teacher! Leave them kids alone!" Rules are bricks in the wall.

LOL

tzalman wrote in post #16367008
Seems like you should be telling that to the instructor of the course. "Teacher! Leave them kids alone!" Rules are bricks in the wall.

I hjave no idea what you mean by this.

Tiberius wrote in post #16367107
I hjave no idea what you mean by this.

Obvious a Pink Floyd fan

ceriltheblade wrote in post #16367017
Indeed and I will take that seriously. Just trying to understand the purpose of the rule. Later on we will be breaking the rule!

Exactly!

By the way, do you know "Mack the knife"?

Tiberius wrote in post #16367107
I hjave no idea what you mean by this.

That's ok, I never cared much for the second Caesar anyways. Rumor had it that he only got to the throne because his mother "arranged" the removal of four other heirs who had a better claim.

But Tiberias is a nice town.

iowajim wrote in post #16367182
By the way, do you know "Mack the knife"?

LOL

and while his shark bite may be badder than Leroy Brown,
I think I have it over them all....

tzalman wrote in post #16366996
When I studied photography - long ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and now I am the dinosaur - we learned that the best composition has two centers of interest,one primary and the other secondary. This causes the viewer's eye to move around the picture, creating a subconscious feeling of dynamism. So having the primary C of I at a certain locus does not mean that the rest of the frame has to be empty. But it seems likely that the instructor's purpose was not to create the "perfect" or even best photo, but rather to give the students "hands on" experience of trying several variations.

Yeah, I think EVERY SHOT has a foreground and a background. They both have to make sense for the photo. Even shooting at wide open with a creamy bokeh, the bokeh itself is a background too.

tzalman wrote in post #16367008
Seems like you should be telling that to the instructor of the course. "Teacher! Leave them kids alone!" Rules are bricks in the wall.

But unless one has a natural design sense, he still has to learn the rules before he can successfully break them. Sometimes those rules DO make sense, and sometimes the less you move the subject away from the rules, the better the end composition. The rules aren't bad rules, and they shouldn't be totally ignored, certainly not in a design class. Learn the rules, learn to use them, then learn when they don't work.

The end point to be learned is that the rules aren't 100% set in stone, but to understand when you can deviate from them, you must first learn how to properly use them in a traditional manner.

thanks

i agree about that - especially since I myself am looking for some academic basics. But, as I said - it isn't really my class. I am taking it sort of by proxy.

but that is less important. I guess what I still am unsure about - is the part of the field which isn't in the corner of the frame have to be relatively empty of content... see examples I wrote above for the CLASSICAL version of this method. (remember I have to do 6 different methods of framing/composition - and this is just one of those methods.)